How Big Is Volkswagen?

If given enough money to buy just one company, which one would you buy? Bugatti, Skoda, Audi, Lamborghini, Volkswagen, Ducati, Bentley or Porsche? If you are a speed freak, you might choose Bugatti. If you admire luxury, you won’t look any further than Bentley. Love mean designs? Lamborghini for you. Maybe you like two wheels more than four? In that case, Ducati, of course! But maybe you are one of those who don’t settle for just one. Maybe you want them all, what do you do then? Well, if I were you, I would choose Volkswagen. Read on to find out why!

Today, on the racing track of How Big Are They, we drive at top speed to find out just how big is Volkswagen.

Found in 1937 in Berlin, Germany, with the backing of none other than Adolf Hitler, today, Volkswagen Group is ranked 7th in the list of Forbes Global 500, ahead of the likes of Apple and Toyota. It is also the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world, producing nearly 10 million units every year.

In fact, in 2013, Volkswagen produced more units than Honda, Mitsubishi, BMW, and Suzuki combined. The 9.2 million cars produced by VW meant that it produced almost 3 million units more than its nearest rivals, Ford and Hyundai.

Producing and selling millions of cars every year requires thousands of employees. 610,076 employees to be precise. To put it into perspective, Ford and General Motors have a combined workforce of just 448,000 employees, way behind VW Group. As a matter of fact, Volkswagen has almost twice the number of employees than their biggest competitor, Toyota.

In fact, if some day the employees of Volkswagen feel threatened and decide to form an army of their own, then this army would be bigger than the armed forces of Australia, Italy, Croatia, and Norway combined! Volkswagen. Das Army.

Five facts about Volkswagen

Fortunately, its biggest interest still lies in making money and not fighting wars and well, it does make pretty good money. In fact, in terms of revenue, Volkswagen is the largest automobile company in the world and overall the 11th largest company in the world. Its yearly revenue of $245 billion dollars easily overshadows that of Toyota ($227 billion), Daimler ($157 billion), General Motors ($152 billion), Ford ($144 billion) and Honda ($142 billion).

As a matter of fact, with its yearly revenue, VW generates enough money to pay the external debt of countries like Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Thailand and New Zealand.

Sticking with countries, VW Group, with total assets worth almost $396 billion, has more money in assets than the total nominal GDP of countries like Portugal, South Africa, New Zealand and even the fastest growing country in the world, Singapore. This figure is also 10 times the total defense budget of Germany.

Oh, and by the way, remember all those companies in the opening paragraph? Well, the Volkwasgen Group owns them all. That’s right, Volkswagen owns the likes of Bugatti, Bentley, Audi, Lamborghini, Ducati and many more. Speed freak or mean designs, doesn’t matter, you’re buying Volkswagen now, aren’t you? Thought so!

If Volkswagen Group didn’t exist, there would be no site like this. I say this because it was the fact that VW owns brands like Bugatti and Bentley that got me fascinated with facts like these in the first place. But even then I didn’t exactly know that Volkswagen is this big.

Like a young me, were you surprised by the sheer quality of brands it owns? If yes, share it with people as interesting as you using the share buttons below.

I hope you enjoyed reading about how big Volkswagen is. Which brand should I do next? Let me know in the comments below. Till then, thank you for reading and I will catch you in the next one!